Black Friday
by antepathy
Summary: Barricade tries to explain Black Friday to a cluster of dronelings. It does not go well. Oneshot for your holiday fun!


A/N Okay, I don't normally do crackfic oneshots, but insomnia hit and this is the result and I still think it's kind of funny.

"All right, you morons. Listen up. You got your mission specs, right?" Barricade paused, waiting for the dozen or so dronelings, newly sentient, to nod agreement. "Good. We'll drop you next solar on Earth. First task—scan and take an alt mode. Second task, you know, blend in. Can't help you if you frag this one up." They nodded again, serious expressions on their formerly blank little faces. These were all ground frames, waiting for their first big taste of freedom. But, patiently, as dronelings did everything.

"Fan-fraggin'-tastic. Now pay attention and your wise and honorable instructor Barricade's going to prove to you why you always need to listen to your intelligence officer. Got it?"

A chorus of eager agreement. Oh, he did love dronelings. No tedious arguments.

"Right. Now, you'll have roughly 8 'hours' local time—the chrono conversion shellware should already have been installed." Another series of eager nods. "After that, STAY OFF THE ROADS for the following sixteen local hours."

A little claw popped up out of the cluster of dronelings. "Wise and honorable Instructor Barricade! Why must we stay off the roads?"

"Because, little idiot, that time window is very dangerous, especially for dronelings. In the location where we'll be dropping you, it's a sick custom called 'Black Friday', and all of the humans generally take to the roads themselves and try to kill each other."

"That's good, right?" chirped another droneling. "Humans are bad."

"Humans ARE bad, yes. But you don't want them to kill you by accident."

"Oohhhhhhhh," a chorus of comprehension.

Another claw. "Instructor Barricade? Why do the humans try to kill each other? Why do they do it on the roads?"

A sigh. "They go to these things called 'malls' on this day. To get there, they fight it out on the roads. Only the strong survive and all that."

"What is a mall?"

"It's like Supply, but even more obnoxious."

"Why do they all go to Supply-mall at the same time? Do their Instructors not assign them proper rotations?"

"No, they do not. Humans suck. And they go to the mall to buy each other presents."

"What's a present?"

Barricade scowled. "It's something you give to someone else."

"Like space lice?"

"Kind of. But this time you give them something because you like them. Well, that's how it's supposed to go. Because humans screw everything up, they do it this way."

"Honorable Instructor Barricade? I am confused about these presents."

Barricade sighed. "Right. Listen up and know your fraggin' enemy: Presents are supposed to be nice and generous expressions about how you feel about someone. If you have positive feelings for someone, you want to show that, so you get them something to show them and remind them of that. But humans have set up special days where you're SUPPOSED to give them presents, which kind of ruins the whole thing. Because you have to give them something. And if you don't, they get mad. And if they don't like it, you don't have positive enough feelings for them."

"Must the presents be gotten on this one day from Supply?"

"No. But humans, of course, suck. And on this Black Friday, presents are cheaper."

"So they can get MORE presents?" A beatific face.

"No, so they can be cheap disgusting squishies."

A droneling tilted his head, face scrunched up in confusion. "So…how they feel about the ones they buy the presents for is…cheap?"

"You got it, droneling. You're going to be something someday." The droneling preened, happily.

Another little claw. "Instructor Barricade? Have you ever been given a present?"

He looked offended. "Of course I have!" Well, once.

"What was your present?"

"That's, uh, that's not really relevant to our briefing."

The dronelings started whining. The only thing worse than an overcurious droneling was a frustrated overcurious droneling. A MASS of them.

"Fine! Fine. I got a datatrack of _Seeker Cadets_. When I was about your age."

"What's _Seeker Cadets_?"

"It's a stupid show for airframes."

"Why did you get it? Are you an airframe?"

"Look, the present itself doesn't really matter. It's that someone thought enough to want to give it to me."

"So….honorable Instructor? Did you never watch the datatrack?"

"Of course I watched it." Only about a thousand times. Only enough times to have every line of dialogue memorized. Backwards. "And I used to—" He cut himself off. And looked down to see every optic in the room wide eyed and staring. Oh slag. "I, uh, I was very young. I used to, uhhh, recharge holding it."

"Because someone cared enough to give it to you!" a droneling blurted, brightly.

"Yes," he crabbed. "Now, can we move on? Black Friday—WHAT?!" Another droneling hand poked in the air.

"Honorable Instructor Barricade! I have a present I would like to give you!" The droneling bounced to his feet and raced to the front of the room.

"No!" Barricade put his hands up, defensively. "No presents! Not in the middle of a briefing! Ack!" The droneling wrapped its spindly arms around Barricade's shoulders.

"I am giving you a hug!" it said, proudly. "Because I have positive feelings about you!"

"I will give a hug, as well!" "I appreciate our intelligence officer too!" "I also have a present for Instructor Barricade!"

"Back off!" Barricade yelled, desperately. "No hugs! I will punch you in the fraggin' face if you touch me! Oh Primus, get off me!!" He was swamped with the chirpy little idiots throwing their arms around him and nuzzling. Oh, he was going to purge all over them. Show them how HE felt about them.

"Is this how all of your briefings end, Barricade?" A cool voice from the doorway. Oh frag it all! Starscream.

Barricade prayed he hadn't heard the whole _Seeker Cadets_ thing.

"Shut up and help!"

Starscream rolled his eyes.

The drones pushed together, trying to get closer to Barricade. They fell over with a crash and flailing of limbs.

"Air Commander Starscream," Barricade gasped, weakly, "would like some presents as well. It's rude to make him feel left out." Well, that helped—the drones detached themselves and started swarming the jet, arms extended. Starscream smirked over at Barricade, crouching low to the ground.

"Hello, little dronelings," he said. "I appreciate all of these wonderful presents. Do you know how to appreciate a present? Has your wise instructor covered that yet?"

"No! Tell us, please!"

Barricade pushed himself into a wary crouch, optics narrowed at Starscream. Oh frag. He probably had heard.

"Block of instruction, dronelings," Starscream said, waiting for their programming to open a new shell. "When someone gives you a present, the proper thing to do is first, to say thank you. So, thank you, little dronelings. I appreciate your present. The second step is to do something to show your appreciation, because," he shot a similarly narrow-eyed look back at Barricade, "words are cheap. So, little dronelings, I shall give each of you a hug to show how much I appreciate your hug." He held out his arms. The dronelings crowded in, bleating happily. Starscream waited for a long moment. Eventually, one of them got it.

One droneling popped his head out of the mass. "Air Commander Starscream? Wise and honorable Instructor Barricade did not show us appreciation for our present. Does that mean he did not appreciate it?"

Starscream smirked. "Oh no. Instructor Barricade is merely shy and overwhelmed. Do you know what to do when someone is shy?"

"Kill them?"

"I know: punch them in the face!"

"No! Rip out their guts and stomp on them, the dirty squishies."

Starscream snickered. "I hear you have been paying very close attention to the wise words of Instructor Barricade. However, killing is a bit much; and you do not want to kill your wise and honorable instructor, do you?"

A chorus of earnest 'no's.

"So…what do we do, Air Commander Starscream? We do not want him to be shy!"

"But… We want our present appreciated."

Starscream leaned in closer, dropping his voice. "To help someone who is shy, you must," he waited until all of their eyes revolved to him, "tickle him!"

Barricade bolted across the room, but only managed to wedge himself into the corner. "Starscream!" he yelped, as a tide of dronelings descended on him, tiny talons twitching, "I am going to fraggin' kill you for this!"

"That would be a shame, Barricade," Starscream said, straightening up as the dronelings swarmed over Barricade and he collapsed, gasping, one long silver set of talons clutching helplessly in the air above the mass. "If you kill me, I won't be able to give you _Seeker Cadets_ volume two."


End file.
